Crane Designs~ Arizona
(Marian Crane)

Blue Glass
By Marian Crane
Scottsdale, Arizona: Crane Designs, 2008. One-of-a-Kind.

5 x 4"; 12 pages. Materials: linen, cotton, leather, glass, polyester, acrylic, paint, bronze foil. Cloth pages accented with bead and thread tassels. Painted leather covers with wooden spine accented with beads and tassels.

Marian Crane: "A meditation that began with the sight of Rose Windows in cathedrals, and expanded to contrast our reactions to natural and manmade beauty."
$900

Jade Lands
By Marian Crane
Scottsdale, Arizona: Crane Designs, 2008. One-of-a-Kind.

5.25 x 2"; 56 pages. Paper: Somerset Rag. Materials: nylon, glass, bone, poplar wood, Daniel Smith watercolor. Bound in poplar boards with exposed thread spine binding.

Marian Crane: "Most of my books have been fabric, but I recently played with the Jadeite watercolor from Daniel Smith. The idea of gemstones ground into paint was intriguing, and led to a few dozen doodles on 2" x 10" strips of rag paper: landscapes, textile patterns, leaves, flowers, abstracted city maps. The best of these I bound with a modified Coptic binding and poplar boards."
$375

Neon Cities
By Marian Crane
Scottsdale, Arizona: Crane Designs, 2008. One-of-a-Kind.

6.5 x 3"; 28 pages. Materials: leather, wood, linen, cotton, nylon, glass. Embroidered text pages. Wooden boards and spine with thread tie closure. Bead tassel accents on spine.

Marian Crane: "Before every U.S. presidential election, I make a book. 2008's book got sidelined by Neon Cities, until I realized that it was the election book. In an ABC format of indigo linen and crimson thread, I linked some of the world's most vibrant cities - in hopes that progress and diplomacy would link the U.S. again with its neighbors. We won the election, but when I was finishing the book, the Mumbai terror attacks took place. So the last stitches and tassels were set with some grim defiance, and the hope that Mumbai and the other neon cities would stay as brightly lit as ever."
$1150

Incantation
By Elinor Wylie
Tempe, Arizona: Crane Designs, 2007. One-of-a-Kind.

7.25 x 4.5 x 2"; 8 stiff cloth panels. Wooden boards. Materials: oak, bone, poplar, linen, polyester, glass, and shell. Printed and embroidered pages of black, white, grey, and tan.

Marian Crane: "A 1921 Elinor Wylie poem about the vivid interplay between black and white word-pictures."

Another work by Marian Crane that proves the inadequacy of description to convey the artists' book experience. The mix of materials and textures is a sensuous reflection of Wylie's words.
$1,250

The Snow Man
Poetry by Wallace Stevens
Book design by Marian Crane
Tempe, Arizona: Crane Designs, 2006. One-of-a-Kind.

7 x 5 x 1"; 5 pages. A fiber book of painted and embroidered linen, beads of pearl, crystal, and bone, stoneware buttons, and permanent india ink calligraphy on linen. Bound with a wraparound cover of tan cotton brocade and ice-blue cotton bias tape closed by two tan stoneware toggles, a braided linen cord, and a bone accent bead. Five pages alternate embroidered winter vignettes with a two-tone ink layout of the poem.

Based on the Wallace Stevens' poem, "The Snow Man." The striking look and feel of Crane's The Snow Man belie what some have seen as nihilism in Steven's poem.

The poem is used by the gracious permission of Wallace Stevens' heir Peter Hanchak and by Alfred A. Knopf publishers.
$675

Smoke and Flame
By Marian Crane
Tempe, Arizona: Crane Designs, 2005. One-of-a-Kind.

3.5 X 5 X 1.5"; four leather leaves. Materials used: red oak; tooled and pierced leather; rust and gray linen; rust and gray upholstery leather; cotton thread; pearls, moonstone, smoky quartz, labradorite, iolite, and carnelian beads. Covers are tooled with smoke and flame designs and pierced at the centers with holes socketing iridescent labradorite discs anchored with rust linen stitches. Four pages alternate rust leather with gray semiprecious stone accents and gray leather with orange stone accents. The inlaid designs symbolize drifts and coils of smoke and flickering flames. Three rust and gray linen tassels anchor the pages to the gray-washed oak box spine and finished with cascades of semiprecious carnelian, red agate, and labradorite beads.

Fire is present in every part of our civilization and at every time in our history - as a tool, as a comfort, and as a terrifying symbol of uncontrolled nature. Crane developed this book as a mini-shrine to that duality.
$850

Star Map
By Marian Crane
Tempe, Arizona: Crane Designs, 2004. Edition of 3.

3.2 x 3.2 x 1" using lindenwood, cream linen cloth, black and pale green linen thread, glass beads, luminescent paint and thread. The boards are shielded behind three coats of Delta Ceramcoat and a UV-protectant film. The black text has swirls of glow paint and glow thread. The glow-in-the-dark thread is rated as washer and dryer safe, and sold primarily for decoration on kid's clothes. Because these are handmade each one in the edition is slightly different.

The Latin phrase "Per Aspera Ad Astra" is usually translated as "by rough road, to the stars" - through hardship, toward success and renown. Marian Crane decided it could be a message of hope and endurance to mark the start of a new year.

Under normal light, the linen pages appear in different shades of pale green, cream, and black. When moved from strong light into darkness it becomes "a swirling map of stars, magnetic currents, geometric designs, and plantforms." In this light the book becomes a fantasy view of unknown space.
$425 (Last Copy)

Wait
By Marian Crane
Scottsdale, Arizona: Crane Designs, 2004. One-of-a-Kind.

3" high, 5.5" wide, 2" deep; 8 pages. Wenge wood, walnut, leather, dyed linen fabric, printed cotton fabric, cotton embroidery thread, brown linen thread, glass and porcelain beads, rock crystal, acrylic paint. Wooden covers inlaid with rock crystal gems over hand-painted vignettes illustrating the text. Anchored by two tassels of brown, blue, and white handblown glass beads and Chinese porcelain beads. Primary colors: dark brown, blue, white.

Marian Crane: "Four embroidered and appliqué pages hold an 8-line poem about companionship and aging."
$850